According to Government's spokesman Jelko Kacin, these measures will prepare Slovenia for the second wave of the novel coronavirus. ACP4 amends the provisional measures to mitigate and remedy the consequences of the epidemic in the fields of labour, employment relationships, scholarships, and social assistance.

The main solutions are:

• extending the measure for temporary lay-off,
• determining and paying a compensation in case of imposed quarantine, including
• measures related to institutional care under the Social Assistance Act and
• a COVID-19 contact-tracing mobile application.

Extension of the measure for partial reimbursement of salary compensation for temporarily laid-off workers, introduction of reimbursement of salary compensation for imposed quarantine

The proposed act extends the measure for partial reimbursement of salary compensation for temporarily laid-off workers until 31 July 2020. The extension will be possible until 30 September 2020.

The proposed act includes several amendments to ensure a better and more efficient supervision of measures for short-time work and temporary lay-off.

The aim of the proposed act is also to mitigate the consequences of a situation when quarantine imposed on a worker is to be covered by the employer, in cases when the employer cannot avoid the absence of the worker, who cannot work and for whom it is not possible to assign work from home, but is nevertheless obliged to provide salary compensation for absence from work under the labour legislation. The proposed act thus enables employers to apply for the reimbursement of salary compensation also in such cases. Workers are entitled to salary compensation, the amount of which will depend on the reason for issuing a quarantine decision. In accordance with ACP4, the entitlement to reimbursement of salary compensation due to the imposed quarantine will end at the latest on 31 September 2020.

The proposed act establishes the basis for the functioning of a mobile application

The aim of the act is to protect human health, prevent the spread of the infection and help the citizens. To this end, the proposed act establishes the basis for a mobile application which will notify healthy people of their contacts with COVID-19 positive persons and those put under quarantine. The installation and use of the mobile application will be voluntary and free-of-charge, except when a person tests positive for the virus or is put under quarantine. In such cases, the person is obliged to install the application by entering their random code. The application is based on the Communicable Diseases Act.

Epidemiological situation in our neighbourhood is deteriorating, Croatia might be removed from the green list

Jelko Kacin highlighted the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Greece as the only country from the green list.

Slovenia closely monitors the situation in Croatia that has seen a drastic increase in infections in recent days. The biggest epicentre is in Zagreb. Jelko Kacin stated that Prime Minister Janez Janša was in contact with the Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković. Slovenia expects that Croatia will adopt appropriate measures and prohibit large gatherings of people at parties.

It is possible that tomorrow Slovenia will remove Croatia from the list of safe countries, if Croatia exceeds the threshold of 10 infections per 100,000 people, added Jelko Kacin, pointing out that the yellow list does not mean that Slovenian citizens will be put under quarantine when returning to Slovenia. This is just to caution people who are thinking of travelling to Croatia or who are already there.

44 imported infections

The number of infections imported to Slovenia increased to 44 in the last month. A total of 16 cases were imported from Serbia, 15 from Bosnia and Herzegovina, six from Kosovo, and one from Russia, Kazakhstan, Sweden, USA, Croatia, Austria and Germany respectively. According to Jelko Kacin, there is no record of infections being imported from Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia.

Restrictions on the size of gatherings and enhanced supervision of the implementation of quarantine decisions

Jelko Kacin announced that, at its correspondence session today, the Government intends to reduce the size of gatherings from 500 to 50 people. Gatherings of 500 people will still be possible at organised events. He highlighted the need for a more efficient supervision of the implementation of quarantine decisions, stating that the police will assist the health inspection.